


Life on Mars

by Duck_Life



Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Androids, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Revolution, Social Commentary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22904299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Geordi spends his days working at Utopia Planitia and wondering if he's sold his soul.
Relationships: Hugh | Third of Five & Geordi La Forge
Comments: 13
Kudos: 75
Collections: Star Trek Fics





	Life on Mars

The synths all look alike except for the designation stamped on their foreheads like a slaver’s brand. The one approaching Geordi this morning is marked L7. “Good morning, Commander La Forge,” he says blandly, handing over a PADD. “Here are the schematics for the latest line of Intrepid class starships.”

Geordi works his jaw, then tries to give L7 a meaningful smile. “Thank you,” he says, accepting the PADD. “How’re you doing?” 

The synth pauses. Then he says, “I am functioning as programmed.” 

“Right. Of course.” Geordi glances down at the PADD— facts and figures, nothing he doesn’t pretty much already know. He looks back up at L7, at his pale yellow eyes, his bare scalp. As if hair might be too humanizing. Working here is breaking Geordi’s fucking heart. “You, um. You can call me Geordi, by the way.”

“Geordi…” It sounds almost like a question. 

“Yeah, that’s my first name… my given name,” Geordi says. How much of the synths programming involves human customs, Earth customs? How much is deemed irrelevant? 

“I understand, Geordi.” 

Geordi glances at the photograph of him and Data on his desk— the only personal item he keeps on his desktop. And he remembers, with a surge of grief, every time he ever heard Data correct another person about the pronunciation of his name—  _ Day- _ tah, not  _ Dah- _ ta. 

L7 doesn’t even have a name. None of them do. 

Unless… “Do you have one?” Geordi says suddenly. “A name?” Maybe the synths talk amongst themselves. Maybe they have a whole culture, their own customs, kept private in the storerooms of Utopia Planitia. ( _ Storerooms _ , not quarters, because they are kept like eggs in a carton, like rows and rows of machinery stowed away without a thought to their comfort.)

“My designation is L7,” the synth says. He pauses, like he’s thinking, and then he says, “I do not have a name. Names, as I understand, are generally for people and places.” 

Geordi’s jaw twitches. He wants to walk into the Daystrom Institute and scream at every cyberneticist there until he’s blue in the face. “Do you want one?” he says, thinking suddenly, fondly, of Hugh. 

“You are asking if I want a name?” L7 says. 

“Yeah,” Geordi says, wondering if it’s the wrong move. He thinks he’s being helpful, if only a tiny bit. He thinks he’s putting a Bandaid on a warp core breach. Maybe he’s actually making it worse, giving this android pity instead of respect. Maybe L7 interprets his behavior like an owner with a pet or a mechanic with a tool. 

A flashbulb memory— Data on the Amargosa Observatory, making a tricorder “talk.” Anthropomorphizing it. Geordi can name every synth on the planet and they still won’t be free. 

“I do not want anything,” L7 says. “I have no likes or dislikes. I have no wants or needs.” 

“I mean… sometimes you need maintenance, right?” Geordi says. “That’s a need. And… and wouldn’t you  _ dislike _ it if, I don’t know, you were injured? Or uncomfortable?”

“I do not experience discomfort.”

“Yeah, you don’t experience comfort either,” Geordi sighs. “But you should. You deserve to. Every person deserves comfort.”

“I am not a person,” L7 reminds him. 

Geordi grips the edge of his desk. “Yeah, they used to say that about people on Earth,” he says. “We really haven’t changed— humanity. But the way I see it… you think, you act. You look human. Those—” ( _ bastards _ ) “— scientists at Daystrom, they made you to look human. In my book, that makes you a person.” 

L7 tilts his head, and the familiarity of the gesture makes Geordi’s heart ache. “You are very invested in this subject.”

Geordi glances again at the picture of Data. “I had a friend,” he says. “He was like you. And he fought for the rights of androids and of synthetic lifeforms even less sophisticated than you and him. And…”  _ And it was all for nothing _ . “I guess I’m just trying to keep his dream alive.” 

“It seems very important to you that you give me a name,” L7 notes. 

“Names are humanizing,” Geordi says. “I like people to call me ‘Geordi’ because it keeps them thinking of me as a person, with my own thoughts and opinions, not just another, I don’t know, another piece in some intergalactic game of chess.” 

“Geordi,” L7 says, “I would accept a name from you.” 

“Do you  _ want  _ one?” 

L7 deliberates. “I have not knowingly experienced ‘want,’” he points out. “I do not think I would be able to distinguish it if I did experience it. But I do not…  _ dislike _ the idea of having my own name.” 

“Alright.” Geordi thinks, racks his brains. “What about… Leo?” 

“Leo,” the synth repeats. “Leo… one of Earth’s constellations. The Latin word for lion. A name shared by talented artists and actors in Earth’s history.” 

“Do you like it?” Geordi asks. 

“I do not know,” the synth says. “But I will use it, and… and I will let you know tomorrow the reactions I encounter… both internally and externally.” 

“Leo, then,” Geordi says. He taps the PADD on his desk, nearly forgotten. “Thank you for bringing me this, Leo.” 

“Thank you for the intriguing discussion, Geordi,” Leo replies. He nods politely, and then he walks away, leaving Geordi behind in a small maelstrom of guilt and doubt. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


The hologram of Hugh watches with concern as Geordi rages across the room, gesturing emphatically with each point he makes. “If I had known,” he says, shaking his head. “Goddammit, if I had any idea this was what they had in mind… I only gave them permission to study Lore and B-4 because… because…”

“Because you thought they might be able to reconstruct Data,” Hugh says gently. He reaches out, as if he could put a hand on Geordi’s shoulder even from so many lightyears away. His holographic arm passes right through Geordi, who shakes his head again and keeps pacing around his office. 

“I was  _ stupid _ ,” Geordi says. “I was stupid and selfish, and I thought… I thought I could save him. And now, thanks to Bruce  _ fucking _ Maddox…” He shudders and kicks the corner of his desk. “They don’t have names, Hugh. They— they all stand in one big crowd to ‘sleep,’ they… there’s no individuality, there’s no basic  _ decency _ or respect. People as property. That’s what they are. It’s fucking criminal.”

“I know.” 

“I don’t want to be here,” Geordi says. “I wish… I don’t know.” He thinks, suddenly, of joining Hugh on the reclamation project with him, of getting to see him and talk to him for real, instead of just shouting at this pale transmission of his friend. “But I feel like if I weren’t here, somehow… things would be worse. Everyone here, most of them… they treat the synthetics like trash. And that’s just… I mean, they were  _ created  _ to be… anonymous, and disposable, and  _ I couldn’t stop it _ .” 

“None of this was your fault, Geordi,” Hugh says. “The creation of synthetic lifeforms for use by Starfleet… this was always in the making, ever since the discovery of Dr. Soong’s laboratory. You told me as much a long time ago.” 

Geordi sighs and sinks back into his chair, deflated. He’s exhausted most of his anger by now, and in its place is a smoldering sort of sadness and shame— at himself, at the Federation, at the cyberneticists who allowed this to happen. 

“Every day I’m here,” he says flatly, “it’s like… it’s like spitting in the face of everything Data stood for. I want to be for them what he was for his daughter, for the exocomps, for, hell, even for his horrible brother… but I don’t know how.” 

“I don’t know how either,” Hugh admits. “But… you changed my whole life when you chose to be my friend,” he says. “And I’m out here, on the Artifact… I’m helping people like me, other xBs. I’m making a difference because you showed me how.” 

“I was going to use you,” Geordi points out darkly, “to annihilate your own race.” 

“You were following orders,” Hugh says, “until you weren’t. Until you recognized that those orders were wrong. And that, I have found, is all it takes. People following orders are the ones who keep oppression and slavery functioning like a well-oiled machine. But choosing to disobey those orders— that’s what changes things. That’s what starts revolutions.” 

“It should be Data,” Geordi sighs. “It shouldn’t be me, it should be… it should be one of  _ them _ , or someone like them, standing up to Starfleet. Turning the tide.” 

“Data is gone,” Hugh says, not unkindly. “They don’t have Data, but they do have you. I believe you can make a difference, Geordi, because you made a difference for me.” 

"You really think so?"

"I know so," Hugh says. 


End file.
